The popularity of Near Field Communication (“NFC”) technology is steadily increasing in the electronics industry. This popularity is being driven by the simple, secure, and intuitive nature of NFC devices. NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that may provide digital communication between devices by touching them together or placing them within a close proximity to each other (e.g., approximately two inches). This intuitive technology may be incorporated into stand-alone, discrete devices, or on the other hand may be incorporated into existing devices, which may be referred to as NFC communications enabled devices.
Near field communication typically requires an antenna or transceiver of one NFC device to be within a magnetic field generated by another NFC device. The NFC device may then inductively couple to the magnetic field and form a communication link. Typically, the magnetic field may be generated by the transmission of a radio frequency (“RF”) signal, for example a 13.56 MHz signal, which may be modulated to enable communication between the various NFC devices. Each NFC device may be capable of both responding to and generating an NFC communication link.
The primary applications currently driving deployment of NFC in the industry are multi-factor authentication, event ticketing, mass transit ticketing, and payment systems.
In the field of data processing, services are typically provisioned to user devices via shrink-wrapped software, downloadable software, or website registration over the internet. These services may require navigation to a website and registration of a password, user information, and possibly a credit card number for payment, thereby providing a security threat to the user. While shrink-wrapped services may not require use of a network, shrink-wrapped software is expensive to produce and distribute compared to downloadable software.